Smith tells us that a society of which the greater part suffers is not happy. [Smith I, p. 70] But, since even the most prosperous state of society leads to suffering for the majority, and since the economic system [Nationalokonomie], which is a society based on private interests, brings about such a state of prosperity, it follows that society's distress is the goal of the economic system.
We should further note in connection with the relationship between worker and capitalist that the latter is more than compensated for wage rises by a reduction in the amount of labor time, and that wage rises and increases in the interest on capital act on commodity prices like simple and compound interest respectively.
Let us now look at things from the point of view of the political economist and compare what he has to say about the theoretical and practical claims of the worker.
He tells us that, originally, and in theory, the whole produce of labor belongs to the worker. [Smith I, p. 57] But, at the same time, he tells us that what the worker actually receives is the smallest part of the product, the absolute minimum necessary; just enough for him to exist not as a human being but as a worker and for him to propagate not humanity but the slave class of the workers.
The political economist tells us that everything is bought with labor and that capital is nothing but accumulated labor, but then goes on to say that the worker, far from being in a position to buy everything, must sell himself and his humanity.
While the ground rent of the indolent landowner generally amounts to a third of the product of the soil, and the profit of the busy capitalist to as much as twice the rate of interest, the surplus which the worker earns amounts at best to the equivalent of death through starvation for two of his four children. [Smith I, p. 60]]
According to the political economist, labor is the only means whereby man can enhance the value of natural products, and labor is the active property of man. But, according to this same political economy, the landowner and the capitalist, who as such are merely privileged and idle gods, are everywhere superior to the worker and dictate the law to him.
According to the political economist, labor is the only constant price of things. But nothing is more subject to chance than the price of labor, nothing exposed to greater fluctuations.
While the division of labor increases to the productive power of labor and the wealth and refinement of society, it impoverishes the worker and reduces him to a machine. While labor gives rise to the accumulation of capital, and so brings about the growing prosperity of society, it makes the worker increasingly dependent on the capitalist, exposes him to greater competition and drives him into the frenzied world of overproduction, with its subsequent slump.
According to the political economist, the interest of the worker is never opposed to the interest of society. But, society is invariably and inevitably opposed to the interest of the worker.
According to the political economist, the interest of the worker is never opposed to that of society: (1) because the rise in wages is more than made up for by the reduction in the amount of labor time, with the other consequences explained above, and (2) because in relation to society the entire gross product is net product, and only in relation to the individual does the net product have any significance.
But it follows from the analyses made by the political economists, even though they themselves are unaware of the fact, that labor itself -- not only under present conditions, but in general, insofar as its goal is restricted to the increase of wealth --is harmful and destructive.
* In theory, ground rent and profit on capital are deductions made from wages. But, in reality, wages are a deduction which land and capital grant the worker, an allowance made from the product of labor to the worker, to labor.
The worker suffers most when society is in a state of decline.
He owes the particular severity of his distress to his position as a worker, but the distress as such is a result of the situation of society.
But, when society is in a state of progress, the decline and impoverishment of the worker is the product of his labor and the wealth produced by him.
This misery, therefore, proceeds from the very essence of present-day labor.
A society at the peak of prosperity -- an ideal, but one which is substantially achieved, and which is at least the goal of the economic system and of civil society -- is static misery for the worker.
It goes without saying that political economy regards the proletarian -- i.e., he who lives without capital and ground rent, from labor alone, and from one-sided, abstract labor at that -- as nothing more than a worker . It can, therefore, advance the thesis that, like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle.
Let us now rise above the level of political economy and examine the ideas developed above, taken almost word for word from the political economists, for the answers to these two questions:
(1) What is the meaning, in the development of mankind, of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labor?
(2) What mistakes are made by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and thereby improve the situation of the working class, or -- like Proudhon -- see equality of wages as the goal of social revolution?
In political economy, labor appears only in the form of wage-earning activity.
